Andrés Córdova Phelps, a professor in Puerto Rico and chair of the Puerto Rico Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, called the comedian’s comments “political malpractice” and “offensive.”

Puerto Ricans were “pissed off” and “disgusted” by the comments, but not shocked given Trump’s history with Puerto Rico, said Ariadna Michelle Godreau Aubert, executive director for Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico, which works to protect Puerto Ricans’ rights to affordable housing and energy. That history includes withholding billions of dollars in federal funding Congress allocated after Hurricane Maria devastated the territory in 2017, knocking out power to parts of Puerto Rico for nearly a year and killing almost 3,000 people. That funding mostly did not start flowing to Puerto Rico until the Biden administration took over federal recovery efforts.

Just a week before Election Day, that disrespect could play a role in not just the national election, but in an increasingly tight race for governor in Puerto Rico. In a presidential election that could be decided on the slimmest of Electoral College vote margins, the votes of the nearly 6 million Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. mainland, particularly in the critical background states such as Pennsylvania, home to more than 470,000 Puerto Ricans, are critical.

So many Puerto Ricans have fled the territory in search of jobs, educational opportunities and health care that there are nearly twice as many Puerto Ricans on the mainland U.S. as back home. Trump critics in the territory are encouraging their fellow Puerto Ricans stateside to step up to do what they cannot: Vote for Kamala Harris.

“I would not be surprised if this moves Pennsylvania to the Harris side,” said Julio López Varona, co-chief of campaigns for the progressive advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy. “The damage is done.”

Charles A. Rodríguez, former president of Puerto Rico’s Senate and former chair of the territory’s Democratic Party, said he hopes Puerto Ricans in the mainland will “use their vote to punish Donald Trump, to punish the hate speech we’re hearing so much from the Republican Party. The only way you can punish people in a democracy is by the vote.”

The Trump campaign quickly sought to distance itself from his remarks, which also included bigoted comments about Black people, Palestinians and Jews. “These jokes do not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” said Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser.

Puerto Ricans called on Trump to apologize for the comments although many also said they did not expect that to happen. The former president on Tuesday, during a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, didn’t distance himself from the comedian’s comments and instead told the crowd, “that was the greatest evening anyone’s seen, politically.”

Angel M. Cintrón-Garcia, Puerto Rico’s GOP state chair, in a statement on Sunday called the comments “unfortunate, ignorant and entirely reprehensible” and said they do not represent conservative values. Cintrón has since reportedly threatened to withhold support from Trump unless he personally apologizes — a mostly symbolic gesture given that territory residents do not have Electoral College votes.

Sergio Marxuach, policy director and general counsel at the Center for a New Economy in Puerto Rico, in an email called what happened “sad and dangerous” and said while Puerto Ricans were now the target this was just the latest in a series of attacks directed at racial and ethnic groups such Venezuelans in Colorado and Haitians in Ohio.

Kenneth McClintock, a former president of Puerto Rico’s Senate, described his first reaction to the comments as “oh god, now us. Because it’s really not that much different from things the Trump campaign was saying about other people. It was our turn. So it didn’t surprise me at all.”

Trump has made a calculated decision that he doesn’t have to expand his base, allowing his surrogate “to spew so much hatred,” said Rep. Nydia Velázquez, a New York Democrat with close ties to Puerto Rico.

“Donald Trump cannot help himself. He is out there for himself. He doesn’t care about anyone else and he showed it,” she said, adding that speakers are vetted before these events. “He knew damn well what [Hinchcliffe] would be saying.”

“I would say to every Puerto Rican in the nation a vote for Donald Trump is a vote against self respect,” she said.

On the same day those insults were being hurled at Puerto Rico, Harris was attempting to woo Puerto Rican voters by pitching her plans to support the territory’s continued recovery following the devastation caused by Maria, drawing a sharp contrast with Trump, who famously threw paper towels into a crowd following the storm.

Puerto Ricans questioned the wisdom of Harris’ proposal to form yet another task force designed to tackle Puerto Rico’s problems and questioned why she didn’t promise to dismantle the fiscal oversight board whose federally appointed members have managed the territory’s finances since its historic $72 billion municipal bankruptcy. Most of the bankruptcy has been resolved, with the notable exception of the government-owned utility’s roughly $10 billion debt.

“These are details that you can quibble over, but she has a plan,” said Federico A. de Jesús, senior adviser for Power4PuertoRico, which advocates for Puerto Rico’s self-determination. “Trump has no plan. All he has is insults.”

The Harris campaign did not provide a response to requests for comment.

Harris has received a flurry of support in the last 48 hours from some of the biggest Puerto Rican celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin and perhaps most notably, Bad Bunny. The Grammy-winning megastar, whose given name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is a powerful cultural figure in the territory and has been taking on an increasingly prominent role in Puerto Rico’s elections. He’s spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on billboards in Puerto Rico conveying his disdain for the pro-statehood party and equating a vote for the party to voting for corruption. And he defended Puerto Rico on Tuesday by posting a loving video ode on Instagram, where he has 45.6 million followers, with the caption “garbage”

Puerto Rico’s territorial status is at the heart of many of its biggest challenges, experts say. The roughly 3.2 million people living in Puerto Rico are American citizens but do not have all the same rights and benefits as people living in the 50 states, including the right to vote in presidential elections or having equal access to federal programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Efforts to address Puerto Rico’s status have stalled. The Republican National Committee’s platform notably omitted any specific reference to addressing the political status of Puerto Rico or the other U.S. territories, and advocated for an assembly to determine Puerto Rico’s status. Democrats’ platform got behind a bill to create a federal process for Puerto Ricans in the territory to determine their status, pledged to work to dismantle the oversight board and to continue the federal government’s efforts to rebuild the territory’s fragile power grid, which often fails even when hurricanes do not make a direct impact given its archaic infrastructure.

But Puerto Ricans have been disappointed many times by the federal government’s failure to address the status issue and are looking for Harris to more forcefully push for change.

“The old status question is kind of lurking in the background,” Córdova said.

And despite Democratic support, it’s not a given Puerto Rico would go Blue if it became a state. Puerto Rico’s political parties do not mirror the Republican-Democratic divide in the mainland United States, generally breaking down based on their positions on Puerto Rico’s status, and right-leaning minority parties have been growing in popularity in the territory.

Those political divisions are in play in Puerto Rico’s local elections next week, including for the governor’s chair. Jenniffer González-Colón, the candidate for governor of Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood party and current non-voting representative for Puerto Rico in Congress, has close ties to Trump.

González-Colón, who did not respond to requests for comment, had a double-digit lead in the polls as recently as late July. But she now finds herself neck and neck in a race with Juan Dalmau Ramírez, the Puerto Rico’s Independence Party candidate for governor who is also getting the support of the upward rising Citizens’ Victory Movement or Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana party, which supports a constitutional assembly to determine Puerto Rico’s status. The alliance of the parties is tapping into anger over the current state of affairs in Puerto Rico, particularly among young voters looking for a political home.

González-Colón on social media called the comedian’s remarks “despicable, misguided and revolting” and said “they do not represent the values of the GOP.” But Marxuach took issue with the argument that the comedian’s comments didn’t align with the values of the current GOP.

“I would have expected a little bit more spine from Jennifer Gonzalez, given everything she has been through in her political career,” he said.

And people were quick to point out her previous support for Trump.

“I would be worried if I were she,” said Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, a law professor and civil rights expert at Indiana University, Bloomington. “Boy, [Trump]’s forcing her to take sides.”